The Salem city police on Sunday released a sketch of one of the suspected assailants in the murder of the BJP State General Secretary ‘Auditor' V. Ramesh (52) and the suspect is expected to be in the age group of 25 to 40 years.

The sketch was prepared by the Hasthampatti police on the basis of a description provided by the 71-year-old watchman who was present in the auditor's office in Second Cross in Maravaneri when the incident took place on Friday.

The police said that the watchman had noticed three unidentified persons entering the premises and committed the crime in less than a minute and fled the scene. Due to the non-functioning of the street-light near the office, the security personnel could not notice the face of other two assailants, the police said.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the assailants could have kept a watch on the movement of the leader for a few days when he moved between his office and the house in the First Cross in the area. Since cadres and company representatives come to visit Mr. Ramesh, the people in the area also did not bother about the movement of people, the police added. Also presence of large number of trees in the area kept the illumination from street-lights low, they added.

The police said that if people came across the suspected murderer, they could contact Hasthampatti police station at 0427-2412615 or the Inspector at 94430-89728. Details will be kept confidential, they added.

I am surprised that news of this seriousness and crime of this gravity did not make it to the print editions of the Hindu outside of Tamil Nadu. And this is not an isolated incident if you look at the chain of murders that has wiped out a lot of the local leadership of the BJP in Tamil Nadu. Perhaps the victims needed to belong to a different category to get the national coverage even victims of hooliganism of alleged Sangh Parivar activists in Karnataka, in those stormed rave parties or pubs got. While the selection of news and when/where it is published is entirely your esteemed newspaper's choice, the standards applied in these cases does surprise the ordinary reader.